Chapter 32 Hannah
Hannah
“Okay, Hannah, it’s time to put your money where your pretty little mouth is,” Dom says as a waitress takes away our empty baskets of chicken wings and fries and slides two fresh pints of beer in front of us.
This is only our second beer of the night, but the fact that I don’t usually drink at all means the first beer already has me feeling light and loose—all the things that make alcohol a nice companion on a first date—and this one is sure to push me over the edge into wanton, predatory territory.
Because I’m on a real first date. With Dom. And damn does he look good. Holy hell.
When this date began, seeing him behind the wheel in those perfectly fitted jeans and that white T-shirt, hugging his chest like a second skin, sent my nerves into overdrive.
But now, here I am, laughing in a crowded bar, feeling giddy in a way I haven’t since I was a teenager. Because that’s what Dom does—he has this effortless way of putting me at ease. He makes me feel alive.
For the first time in forever, I feel comfortable. I feel free. I feel like . . . me. And boy is my true, inner self excited.
Because Dominic Dunn is always handsome, but Dominic Dunn in boots, jeans, a white T-shirt, and a flipping cowboy hat?
Bless my little heart, he is illegally hot.
Seriously. The amount of female attention I’ve seen this man garner since we walked down Broadway and headed into the Whiskey River Saloon is criminal.
He is sex on legs, and tonight I’m the lucky lady who gets to be on his arm. Fingers crossed this turns into more nights.
“Hannah?” Dom singsongs my name when I don’t respond to his question. “Are you chickening out on me?”
“Nope.” I giggle and shake my head. “I’m just admiring how nice you look tonight.”
“It’s the hat, isn’t it?” He waggles his brows. “Or is it the muscles?” He makes a show of flexing his biceps as he lifts his beer. “Or maybe it’s how juicy my ass looks in these jeans . . . ?”
When he starts to stand up from his barstool, I balance on the rings of mine and place two strong hands on his shoulders and force him back down into his seat on a laugh.
“For the love of everything, keep your juicy ass in your seat, please,” I retort. “The last thing I need is a flock of women trying to tear your clothes off and knocking over my beer.” I punctuate that statement by lifting my glass to my lips and taking a drink.
Dom eyes me closely with a little smirk as he does, and I tilt my head to the side in confusion as I lick a few speckles of foam from my lips.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have chicken wings in my teeth or something?”
He grins, shakes his head, and reaches out with his big hand so he can drag my barstool closer to his. So close, in fact, the wooden edges bump against each other and one of my thighs slides perfectly between his.
“Hannah, sweetheart, I’ve spent the whole night watching every schmuck in this place stare at my girl, so you’re going to have to excuse me for refuting your flock-of-women comment,” he says, his voice quiet and raspy.
His face is so close to mine that our noses just barely brush.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure if I want you on that bull.
Fuck knows, the stupid pricks in this bar will be lining up to watch you ride it. ”
The possessive warmth in his words wraps around me like a blanket, and I feel myself melt into it. He makes me feel safe. Like I can let go, like I can trust him with the most vulnerable parts of myself. And God, do I want to.
I’m high off his complimentary words. But I’m also a little tipsy and ready to see this man ride a damn bull.
“Dom?”
“Yeah, Hannah?”
“I think it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and ride the bull,” I tell him and lean forward to press a soft kiss to his lips.
“And what about you?” he asks, before lightly brushing my tongue with his own in an even deeper kiss.
“Oh, baby, I’m riding that bull,” I answer without hesitation. “For all eight seconds.”
Frankly, I’ve never ridden a bull before, and I don’t have a clue where my confidence is coming from, but with the way Dom is smiling at my words, I can’t be anything but all in for whatever is about to go down.
I stand up and take his hat off his head, placing it directly over my hair. “Let’s go, cowboy.”
Dom laughs. “Fuck, you’re a handful.”
“Are you chickening out on me?” I ask, quirking a brow in his direction and holding out my hand toward him.
“Fuck no,” he retorts and takes my outstretched hand. He reaches out with his free hand to tip the rim of his hat, which still sits on my head. “Let’s do this, cowgirl.”
We head straight over to the gated area where the mechanical bull sits. Since it’s a weeknight, there’s not a lot of action in this corner of the bar, and it doesn’t take long for both of us to get signed up with the bearded man running the bull.
I stare at the beast, and even though it’s not alive, it might as well be mocking me. My heart thuds as the reality hits—I’ve never ridden a bull in my life, and now I’m about to let this robotic monster toss me around in front of Dom. What the hell am I doing?
I glance over at Dom, and his confidence is nothing short of effortless.
It radiates from every part of him—from his casual lean against the gate to his warm and easy smile.
When his eyes meet mine, that smile grows big and inviting, making me feel like I can take on the world.
Like I can finally step into the version of Hannah I’ve always wanted to be.
And the way he kissed me earlier—possessive, lingering, like he was staking his claim—sent a thrill through me I still can’t shake. It made me want to be his. Fully. Completely.
“Ready to ride?” Beard’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and I snap my gaze back to the bull, forcing myself to focus.
Looks like I’m first. Gah.
I nod and stride toward the mechanical beast, doing my best to look like a girl who knows what she’s doing, even if my insides are quaking.
Before I hop on the bull with the bearded dude’s help, I jog back over to the side of the gate, where Dom stands watching me with a smile on his face, and toss his cowboy hat back to him.
“You don’t want it for luck?” Dom calls out, his voice dripping with amusement. Something about the way he looks at me—like I’m the only thing in the room worth noticing—makes my inner flirt come alive.
With a playful wink, I blow him a kiss. “I don’t need luck, cowboy!”
Dom chuckles as he pretends to snag the kiss from the air, and I refocus my mind on trying to stay on the big robotic bull for eight seconds.
“You ever rode a bull before?” Beard asks me, and I shake my head, my teeth digging into my bottom lip at the same time.
“Nope. But I need to stay on for eight seconds.”
“That’s a big ask, darlin’.” He chuckles. “But here’s a few tips. Grip this leather strap here with this hand,” he instructs me, moving my right hand to the strap behind the bull’s neck. “The trick is to keep a good, strong grip but keep your other arm and your torso loose.”
“All right.” I nod, trying like hell to make his instructions make sense in my mind. “Got any other tips?”
“If the bull’s head goes down, lean your body back. If the bull’s head moves up, lift your hips and lean forward as far as you can so you don’t slide off the back.”
“You say that like it’s all real easy, but I have a feeling it’s not at all, is it?”
He shakes his head and grins. “I’ll be shocked if you stay on for more than three seconds.”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks for the confidence.”
“Prove me wrong, sweetheart,” he says and heads back to the partition he sits behind. “You ready?” he calls out toward me, and all I can do is nod.
And swallow hard.
The bull jerks, startling me into action, and I try to follow Beard’s instructions, mentally chanting his words in my mind.
Strong grip. Loose torso. If the bull moves forward, you lean back. If the bull moves upward, you . . . shit . . . what the hell do I do?
The bull jerks some more, each movement getting more erratic and difficult for me to anticipate, and all the instructions that Beard gave me go straight out the flipping window when my body is catapulted forward as the bull’s big robotic head looks toward the ground.
I stay on him for a hot second, even though gravity wants to pull me to the ground, but the big bastard pulls a fast one on me and yanks his head straight up and then to the right and the left, and my body gives its best impression of a rag doll as I’m tossed in the air, straight off the bull’s back and toward the padded ground.
And when I look at the clock, I see the number four staring back at me in bright-red letters.
Four seconds? That was only four seconds? It felt like a freaking hour!
Dom jumps over the gate in one smooth motion and heads over to help me stand, and when his eyes lock with mine, all I see is a combination of worry and care sitting beneath the deep pools of blue and green. “You okay?”
I nod, my hands shaking with adrenaline and my legs acting like those of a newborn foal as I try to figure out how to walk again.
“You sure?”
I nod again, but this time, a peal of exhilarated laughter escapes my lungs. “That was incredible!”
“You were incredible,” he corrects me and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“I only managed four seconds.” I roll my eyes. “Pretty sure that’s not incredible in the world of bulls.”
“You’re a badass, Hannah.” He kisses me again. “But now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go be slightly more badass.” He winks then, squeezing my butt cheeks mischievously as he does, and I swat a hand against his chest on a laugh.
“I’m worried that bull isn’t going to be strong enough to hold that big ego of yours, cowboy.”
As he laughs, my heart does a little flip. The way Dom looks at me, like I’m the only woman in the world, makes me feel things I’ve never let myself feel before. He makes me want more—of him, of life, of everything I’ve denied myself for so long.
Clearly, it’s time to stop denying it. It’s time to give in. It’s time to enjoy. It’s time to live.
Yeah. It is.
Dom heads straight for the bull, and I find a safe spot behind the gate to watch.
He hops up on the monstrosity like it’s no big thing and proceeds to grip the leather strap with one of his hands. Beard doesn’t spend nearly as much time with him as he did with me, and I silently wonder how many times Dominic Dunn has ridden this bull.
With a thumbs-up to Beard, Dom lifts his free hand in the air, and just before the bull starts to move, he flashes a smile and a wink in my direction.
I feel it all the way to my freaking toes.
The bull starts to move, but Dom doesn’t startle like I did. Nope. He’s cool, calm, and collected—the sexy bastard—and his body appears at ease, as though he knows exactly what to do.
At four seconds in, he’s still on the bull, and the way the thing is whipping up and down and side to side makes me realize Beard went easy on me.
At six seconds in, Dom takes his cowboy hat off his head and starts waving it around in the air with his free hand.
At seven seconds in, he’s still on the damn bull and a crowd of people has formed around the gate to watch.
And once the clock hits eight seconds, cheers and hoots and hollers erupt around the bar, and Dom hops off the bull with the kind of confident, cocky-as-hell smile that only he could pull off without looking like a dick.
A few men try to high-five him from behind the gate and a few eager women try to get his attention with whistles, but the man’s eyes are locked on mine as he strides straight over to where I stand behind the gate.
With practiced ease, he hops to the other side. And between one breath and the next, he’s pulling me into his arms and pressing a deep, hot, mind-blowing kind of kiss to my lips. More cheers and whistles fill my ears, but my mind is too busy savoring how good he feels to comprehend them.
By the time he leans back, I’m panting. And horny.
“Eight seconds, baby.” He puts his cowboy hat on my head. “I think we can both agree, I lived up to the challenge.”
“You definitely lived up to it,” I say, my voice softer now, but I feel a heat in my gaze.
It’s not just about the bull ride—it’s about Dom himself and the things he makes me feel.
“But that wasn’t the only challenge of the night.
” I lean forward to press my lips to his ear.
“Though you’re going to have to take me home tonight to see if you can live up to the final one. ”
In a matter of seconds, my feet go from the floor to up in the air as Dom lifts me and wraps my legs around his waist.
“You want to spend the night with me?” he asks, his eyes flitting between my gaze and my mouth. “Lovie is staying all night with your mom?”
“I do.” I brush my nose against his. “And she is.”
As I say the words, there’s no hesitation. For the first time in what feels like forever, I’m doing something purely for myself. I want this—I want him—and I’m ready to stop holding back.
For the first time in what feels like my whole life, I’m actually living my life.
And I have Dom to thank for that.
“Hannah May.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard my name sound as good as when it’s coming off his tongue. “I think I’m falling for you.”
“I think I’m falling for you, too, cowboy.”